Dragon Aspect
by thejazzienerd
Summary: Magdalyne journeyed to the ice-bound land of Skyrim to visit her sister. Instead, she found something to fight for. As legends become real and an ancient evil awakes, she will have to become the hero the world needs to beat back the rising shadow of black wings unfurled.
1. Rumors of Dragons

**Chapter 1**

 **Rumors of Dragons**

 _"No dragon has been seen for centuries._

 _There are a few known examples of dragon bones fused with the stone and rocks of cliffs and caves. Just enough proof to make the stories undeniable."_

- _There Be Dragons_ , by Torhal Bjorik

The day the journey was to begin dawned bright and clear. Magdalyne awoke to the sun streaming in her bedroom window and falling across her face. She cracked one eye open, but then made to go back to sleep. It was, after all, the middle of Last Seed: no planting to be done, at least not until later in the day.

Then, she remembered what day it was. Not a holiday, and not a Loredas, when she would begin the trip to Wayrest for market day on Sundas. No, this was not a day anyone else would consider special, but for her nothing could be more worth celebrating.

This was the day she would begin her trip to Skyrim.

She rolled out of bed, throwing back the layers of fur that serve as her blankets and doing so with such enthusiasm that most of them fell onto the floor on the other side of the bed. She dressed quickly, in a green-and-brown forester's tunic, matching leggings, boots, leather gloves with the fingers cut out, and, over all of that, a hooded fur cloak that she had made from the pelt of a wolf. Late summer in her homeland of High Rock was not particularly cold, but cold enough to require a way of keeping warm on long trips.

And the land to the east was even colder, lacking a coastline except on the frigid Sea of Ghosts.

Her pack was waiting for her by the door. She dug through it one final time, checking that everything was there. Dried fruit and nuts, for on the road. Flint and steel, for starting campfires. Journal, for chronicling the trip, as she did with every journey she took. Quill and ink. A small amount of money. Bedroll. Herbs and potions. Map. And at the very bottom…

She pulled out a simple necklace, bearing a charm similar in shape to the two heads of a battleaxe. A trinket that could easily get her killed if the wrong person found out that she carried it. But she refused to travel without the blessing of her god.

"Talos, guide me," she whispered, and then placed the amulet back in the bottom of her bag.

Talos. The man who became Divine. The founder of an empire in which his worship was now outlawed, punishable by death.

And all because a few High Elves with superiority complexes couldn't tolerate the thought of a filthy _human_ being raised to divinity.

Maggie was one of hundreds of people still bitter over the treaty that ended what had become known as the Great War. Her father, a veteran of that war, said that it wasn't a treaty, so much as a temporary truce, a truce that would come crashing down once enough people got fed up with being told that there were suddenly eight Divines instead of nine.

There had been eight once before, of course, before Tiber Septim had been elevated and become Talos. But the human races loved the Ninth. He represented something to aspire to; once one man achieved it, becoming more than mortal was no longer a vain hope.

Or at least, that was what the author of _The Talos Mistake_ said. That woman was fully in support of the ban, and her book was little more than propaganda. It was the only book Maggie had ever been unable to finish. She'd read two chapters and then burned it in her campfire.

A knock on the door jolted her back to the present.

"Maggie, are you awake?"

She pulled the door open, revealing her father's surprised face on the other side.

"When have you ever known me to sleep in on a day when I get to travel?" she asked him.

"Well, you were up late last night," he countered.

"Preparing for this trip. I haven't seen her in three years, Dad. It's time to fix that."

"Let a father do his job, Maggie. I'm just worried about you. This is the longest trip you've ever taken."

"I'm twenty-one, Dad. Five years older than she was when she made the same trip. Sooner or later, a bird's got to leave the nest."

Her father put his hand on her shoulder. "And that is something no parent ever finds easy."

She smiled. "Fine. One last time."

"Alright. You got everything?"

"Almost. My weapons are in the kitchen. Got food, bedroll—"

"Tent?"

"Crap."

"I think I know where it is. I'll get it."

"Thanks, Dad." She put a hand to her neck, as was a habit of hers, and realized that something that should have been there wasn't.

"Have you seen my amulet?" she called after his retreating back.

"Isn't it in your pack?"

"The other one."

"Look in the kitchen."

Their house was small, only three rooms. Two were bedrooms: the one Maggie had shared with her sister, Lienne, until three years ago, and their father's room. The third performed every other purpose they might need a room for. Cooking food, primarily, which was why they called this room the kitchen. Maggie did most of her reading there. Extremely rarely, her father might entertain company there. It was also used for weapons training when the weather was bad.

Maggie's father had tried to train both her and her sister to use a sword when they were young. Neither had taken to it very well. Lienne had quit at the age of ten to focus on honing her magical abilities. Lini was an amazingly gifted mage. She had started casting spells, often accidently, at the age of seven, primarily Alteration, and had quickly branched out into other schools of magic. By ten, she was running a serious risk of causing major damage to something. Fortunately, this was High Rock, home of the Bretons, a people naturally gifted in spellcasting. Their father had sent her to the nearest town to study under a local mage, where she had made incredible progress. By the time she'd left home, Lini had far outstripped her teacher in every school except Conjuration, which she'd staunchly refused to touch.

Maggie, on the other hand, had very little skill with magic in any form, which had brought her a fair bit of ridicule when she was younger. In most of the human-inhabited provinces of Tamriel, magic-users were met with veiled suspicion at best, open fear at worst. High Rock was the exception. Its people were supposed to be descended from elves, which gave them a natural gift for the arcane arts. Here, _not_ having magical ability was a cause for suspicion.

The bow had always been Maggie's favored weapon. At fifteen, she'd quit sword training in her own right to focus on that. She'd carved her own bow, set up targets in the yard, and started practicing for an hour or two every day. After six years, she'd become just as good with the bow as her sister was with magic.

Her bow was leaning against the wall by the back door, her quiver propped up beside it. And draped over the lip of her quiver was her _other_ amulet.

This one bore a dark purple charm that Maggie had always thought looked like a bird in flight. The center of it, between the bird's wings, was set with a blue-green stone.

Kynareth, goddess of the sky and nature. Not Maggie's preferred Divine, but she had learned over the years that people were less likely to search through her things for evidence of Talos worship if she was already wearing another Divine's amulet. And that people often expected anyone who carried a bow to also carry the amulet of the patroness of hunters.

And Maggie was a hunter. Most of the time, when she went to Wayrest for market day, the only things she had to trade were the skins of any animals she'd shot en route. A couple of Wayrest storeowners would only buy skins from her; her accuracy with the bow meant that she almost always shot her kills through the eye, leaving their skins undamaged.

She had made her bow and quiver by hand, and she still made all her own arrows. The bow had been the first thing she'd ever made by hand, and it was own of her most treasured possessions, not only because she'd used it to provide most of the meat that had crossed their kitchen table in the last eight years. A craftswoman's pride in her work was part of it too.

She put on the amulet, swung the quiver over her shoulder, and picked up the bow. When she stood up, she found herself face-to-face with her father, who offered her the rolled-up tent.

"Thanks, Dad," she said.

"Now, is that everything?"

"Should be. Anything I forgot either isn't necessary, or I can buy or make a new one."

Her father still looked concerned.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"You're not going through the mountains, are you?" he asked.

"It's the fastest way."

"It's also dangerous. There's supposed to be dragons in those mountains."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "There's no such thing as dragons, Dad. Even if there once were, they're long dead."

The dragons that, according to legend, had once ruled all of Tamriel now existed only in books and maybe the occasional carving in an old ruin. Every once in a while someone would come running into a town swearing to have seen one, or a drunken vagrant would be heard babbling about the day they would return to re-conquer their empire. But in every way that mattered, they were effectively gone, disappeared into myth.

"Even if that's true, there are other dangers. Maggie, do your old dad a favor and take the southern route."

The "southern route" involved her heading into Hammerfell, through the cities of Dragonstar and Elinhir, then crossing the border into Skyrim near Falkreath. It was only theoretically safer, since it was so much longer and required two border crossings instead of one.

But if prior experience was any indication, her father wouldn't let her leave unless he approved of her planned route.

So she relented. "Fine, Dad. I'll go south."

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _7_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Tirdas_

 _Location: Rural High Rock_

 _Weather: Clear_

 _I'm off! I've waited three years to make this trip, and now the day is finally here. Maybe I shouldn't be so excited. It's going to take probably nine or ten days to get to Skyrim from here. Oh, why did I let Dad talk me into going through Hammerfell? If I stuck to my original plan and just crossed the mountains, I could probably cut that time in half. Dragons, he said. Dragons in the mountains! There haven't been dragons on Mundus for_ _thousands_ _of years._

 _Anyway, my name is Magdalyne, Maggie to my friends. I'm keeping this journal…well, basically, this is a just-in-case sort of thing. Just in case something amazing happens on my trip. I keep these for every trip I take, even when I'm just going to Wayrest to trade goods. And I would say that if ever one of these pays off, it will be on this trip. The history of Skyrim is so_ _rich_ _, as rich as that of any province in Tamriel…_

 _I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not going just to explore. In fact, that's secondary. I'm going to see my sister._

* * *

Maggie looked back at the farmhouse as she crested the first hill. She realized she had no idea how long it would be until she saw it again. This was the place where she had grown up. Twenty-one years here had produced a lot of irreplaceable memories, and, as much as she enjoyed traveling, this was most definitely bittersweet.

There was her herb garden tucked close to the house. Even from this distance she could see that many of the plants she had planted were flourishing. Beyond that stretched the fields, a patchwork of green and brown, soon to be harvested. Thinking about how much work her father would have to do when the time came almost made her turn around. Head back and wait until after the harvest.

Then her wanderlust kicked back in. She had waited so long for this. She refused to wait another day, much less another month, especially since traveling would only be more dangerous once the first snows came.

Skyrim awaited her: the land of dragons, Dwemer, and plenty of mysteries. The land that had enthralled her since she was a girl, more so after her sister had left to go there herself.

Not to mention that half the land was currently in open rebellion against the Empire, fighting to bring back the worship of Talos.

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _8_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Middas_

 _Location: Rural High Rock_

 _Weather: Partly cloudy_

 _I stopped for the night in a small grove of trees, which provided just enough cover that I decided to risk a campfire. There are always dangers on the road, especially at night. And in High Rock it's not just bandits. Once there was the threat of orc raiding parties, streaming out of their homeland of Orsinium in the Dragontooth Mountains to pillage as they pleased._

 _Not a problem anymore, but bandits can be just as relentless. I may be more than capable of defending myself, but I don't look like it. And bandits can always find a use for a young woman…_

 _I had that dream again last night, the same one I've been having for years. A dream about flying. Even just in a dream, that feeling is amazing. It feels almost like I was born to fly, but that's impossible. Right?_

* * *

Maggie saw the deer around midday. Just one, and it seemed to be walking unsteadily. Likely, this one, a young male no more than a few seasons old, judging by the size of its antlers, had been injured and then left behind as the herd moved on.

She unslung her bow and notched an arrow. She pulled back on the string, carefully judging the distance, as well as the wind speed and direction. On a still day, Maggie could draw, aim, and fire in the space of a couple of seconds and still usually hit her mark. This was not a still day, however, and even the slightest breeze could affect longer-range shots.

This was not a particularly long range shot for her. She could shoot accurately from a longer distance than most other archers she'd met, because she had better eyesight than most. She hadn't realized just how good it was for a long time. But then some of the city guardsmen of Wayrest caught wind of how good she was and decided to see for themselves with a friendly competition. She'd won easily, nailing the bull's-eye of a target that the second place finisher said he couldn't even see clearly.

So this shot was easy.

She fired, her arrow piercing the deer's eye and going into its brain. It crumpled to the ground and was probably dead before it hit.

There was no shortage of deer on the plains of High Rock, but finding one alone wasn't particularly common. Plains deer traveled in small herds of about a dozen members. And they were surprisingly intelligent. Maggie had noticed several times that the way the herds grouped together—while intended as way to protect themselves against predators of a more natural variety—also tended to discourage human hunters. It was impossible to discern individual deer from long range. At medium range, it was still sometimes difficult, even with Maggie's preternaturally good eyesight. And at short range…well, only fools think being herbivores means that deer aren't dangerous.

She sliced off the antlers first. Ground antler was an alchemical ingredient, but Maggie didn't have the means to grind them and wouldn't until she made it to Dragonstar. Next came skinning it. The hide would sell for a fair bit in the city, she knew. Even if the demand for furs wasn't as great in Hammerfell as in High Rock due to the warmer climate, it could still be tanned and turned into leather, which was needed everywhere.

Last was to butcher and cook the meat. It would be nice to have some venison for the trip, for when she inevitably got tired of fruit and nuts. But when she opened her pack, she realized that there wasn't room enough for the skin and the meat. And, as much as she hated to admit it, the meat wasn't necessary since she had other food. On the other hand, the money she would get from selling the skin was.

She ended up only slicing off the flank of the deer. That would be enough for one day. Scavengers would take care of the rest.

Roasting the meat over a fire took the better part of an hour, but still less time than roasting the entire deer would have.

The flank ended up being nearly too much food. She could certainly make it another day before needing a full meal again.

* * *

All that day and into the next, Maggie walked west, planning to skirt the mountains as she turned south toward Hammerfell. It was a beautiful day, typical for late summer in the north of Tamriel. Birds were singing. Deer were grazing. Wolves watched from hills in the distance but left her alone. It was a perfect day to travel.

And she wasn't the only one on the road that day. Young men on horseback, older men riding in carts with their families, Maggie saw several of both. Several of them offered her rides, despite the fact that they were mostly headed in the other direction. For that reason, and only that reason, she turned them all down. Had they been going the right way, she would have welcomed the chance to take some stress off her aching feet.

That was the only thing getting in the way of the sheer bliss of being on the road: aching feet. If her feet were hurting already, that raised the question of what kind of shape she would be in by the time she made it to Skyrim.

Finally night came, and with it, an excuse to rest. Her campsite that night was rather out in the open, and she debated long and hard as to whether or not lighting a fire was a good idea. It would keep wild animals away but probably attract people. And anyone wandering the grasslands after dark was likely up to no good.

Finally she decided to risk not having one, a decision her father probably would have called idiotic. But it was late summer, not a time when animals would be desperate for food. Most predators were only dangerous to people when they got desperate—or if someone was stupid enough to get too close to their young. Neither of those applied to the current situation, so Maggie wasn't particularly worried.

And it turned out she was mostly right. When she packed up the next morning, she found that something had rummaged through her stuff at some point in the night. She guessed it was probably an animal, judging solely by the amount of mess it had left behind. There was nothing edible in her pack, except maybe the deerskin, which was still there, although not entirely undamaged. She cursed under her breath when she saw the punctures in the skin. They looked like they'd been made by a wolf's teeth. Nothing was missing, but that wolf had effectively robbed her of a few septims by damaging the skin. She wouldn't get as much in return for it now.

Once she had everything packed up, she started on her way again. The temperature dropped slightly as she got close to the mountains. As she approached, she toyed with the idea of going back on her word to her father and going through the mountains anyway. She stood there for several minutes staring at the slopes, debating with herself. Something inside her rebelled at the idea of betraying his trust, even if he would never know. Finally, she decided to stick to the route she had told him she would follow and turned south.

The weather started to get a little strange as she continued walking. The cold wind blowing down from the mountains met the warm air blowing north from the Alik'r Desert, creating a phenomenon that made it feel like the air didn't know whether to get warmer or colder.

Maggie almost made it to the border that day. When she stopped for the night she could just make out a tan line on the horizon, the beginning of the desert that covered most of Hammerfell.

She set up camp again, making sure to light a fire this time. As the sun sank behind the mountains, she heard something roar.

She immediately pulled out her bow and strung an arrow, wondering what could have made a sound like that. There were plenty of dangerous animals in high Rock. Bears. Wolves. Nothing made noises like that. That was the loudest roar she'd ever heard. She found herself thinking back to the horror stories she'd heard as a girl about wereboars, which supposedly hunted the grasslands.

Maggie pushed that thought out of her head. That was just a story. There were no such things. She slipped the arrow back into her quiver and put her bow away. And as she did, she just happened to look up.

In the last light of the setting sun, she thought she saw a great, leathery wing silhouetted against the side of a mountain.

* * *

 **AN: Well, my Skyrim story is finally on its way. As you can see, I'm starting before Helgen. That's intentional, because (let's face it) that sequence gets awfully repetitive when you've seen it or read it a few times, and I wanted you to get to know Maggie as a character before we get there.**

 **A couple notes on format. First, each chapter will open with a quote, either a line from an in-game book or occasionally a line of in-game dialogue. This is intended to reflect Maggie's love of reading. Second, each chapter will be sprinkled with Maggie's journal entries. I'm using them primarily as a vehicle to show the passage of time, but the journal is also Maggie's way of recording her trip for posterity, which is why some of the entries might seem redundant.**

 **Unlike with my Pokemon stories, author's notes for this story will be relatively short, because I'm trying to write it in a way that someone who's never heard of the Elder Scrolls franchise will be able to understand.**


	2. Red Sands

_"Titus Mede was forced to renounce Hammerfell as an Imperial province in order to preserve the hard-won peace treaty._

 _The Redguards, understandably, looked on this as a betrayal."_

- _The Great War_ , by Justianus Quintius

 _4E 201_

 _9_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Turdas_

 _Location: Rural High Rock, near the border with Hammerfell_

 _Weather: Partly cloudy_

 _Dad may have been right. Dragons in the mountains… I know it sounds crazy, but I think I saw one. Just before the sun set, I swear I saw the shadow of a wing, a wing that was way too big to belong to anything else._

 _If that's true, then it's a really good thing I listened to him and didn't go through the mountains. I almost went back on my word._

 _I've heard several people before insist that they'd seen one. I should have listened. Now I just keep thinking back to what that one fellow in Wayrest said. He was drunk, I know, but he was talking about how the dragons would come back one day to take back the empire they'd once ruled…_

* * *

The border crossing was surprisingly easy. Usually, there were troops, but today the patrols were conspicuously absent. Or maybe Maggie had just gotten lucky. Either way, she slipped across and into Hammerfell totally unhindered. Dragonstar, her first major stop was not far from the border, and she had to get there before nightfall. The Alik'r Desert was not particularly hot, as deserts went. It was plenty scorching during the day, but more people died within it due to lack of water than to heat. There was another danger, however, that claimed still more lives than that. Cold. At night, the desert wastes could rival parts of Skyrim for frigidity.

Too many people never expected that. They expected a desert to be hot all the time, and in their defense, that did make sense. Few non-natives realized how extreme the temperature swings could be until it was too late.

Fortunately for Maggie, she'd read plenty about the geography of Tamriel. She knew how cold the desert could get and had no desire to experience it. She knew she would have to spend a couple nights in the desert, since it was impossible to walk from Dragonstar to Elinhir in a day, or even two. But she wanted the chance to talk to some locals and get fully prepared before trying.

And there was another reason she needed to get to a city quickly. Since that morning, she'd seen dark clouds gathering on the horizon. While rain in the desert could be a good thing, desert storms tended to be sudden and violent. Maggie most definitely did not want to be caught out in one.

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _10_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Fredas_

 _Location: Dragonstar, Hammerfell_

 _Weather: Cloudy, storm on the way_

 _I made it to Dragonstar just as the sun was going down. One of the guards even remarked that I was cutting it close. I don't know if he simply meant that I had just barely gotten there before nightfall or that they were about to lock the gates. I know they lock the gates at nightfall in Wayrest so they can, in theory, keep bandits out without posting night watchmen. From what I've heard, there used to be a night shift of city guardsmen in Wayrest, but they kept falling asleep at their posts, and finally the captain decided that locking the gate was easier. Of course, that's bad news for anyone who shows up at the gate after dark._

 _I found lodgings at the rather-generically-named Red Sands Inn. My room was reasonably priced, but I didn't like the way the innkeeper looked at me. I don't think I want to hang around here any longer than I have to._

* * *

The storm broke early the next morning. Maggie was woken up by the sound of thunder. One look out the front door was all it took for her to decide that she wouldn't be getting out of Dragonstar that day.

Rain poured down all that day, soaking everything, as well as anyone unlucky enough to have to go outside in it. Any unpaved areas of the city quickly turned into messes of mud and wet sand. More than once, lightning struck a house, but the rain put out the resulting fire before it could damage anything.

Finally, evening came and with it an end to the downpour. The people finally ventured out-of-doors. Shopkeepers returned to their newly soaked stalls. And Maggie headed in that direction as well. The first thing she heard upon entering the city square, where the merchants had their stalls set up, was a frustrated cry. An armor merchant had left his transaction registry out in the open the night before, and now it was ruined.

Maggie headed for his stall, hoping he would still buy the deerskin despite his misfortune.

"Look at this," he said, showing her the ruined registry. "There were people on here who still owed me money. Now how am I supposed to remember?"

Maggie tried to think of something to say that would help. Lini, if she was here, would probably tell the man to go find a temple and leave an offering to Zenithar, god of wealth and labor. Maggie wasn't sure how well that would be received. The Nine—now Eight—Divines were Imperial gods, mostly. Each province and race of Tamriel worshiped a slightly different pantheon. And Hammerfell hadn't been on the greatest terms with the Empire since the end of the Great War.

When the Emperor surrendered to the Thalmor and was forced into signing the White-Gold Concordat, the treaty that had banned Talos and instituted a number of other humiliating terms, the Redguards of Hammerfell had been infuriated. They had kept fighting, effectively seceding from the Empire, and were now a sovereign nation. Maggie had a sneaking suspicion that bringing up the Imperial religion might not go over hugely well. Or at the very least, she would sound patronizing, which was not something she wanted when she was about to attempt to enter into a business transaction with this man.

She pulled the skin out of her backpack and laid it on the counter. "Will you buy this?" she asked.

"Did you not hear what I just said?" the man asked.

"I heard. Not sure how I can help, short of bringing my business here and doing what I can to help you make back some of the money you've lost."

"How does selling me a skin help?"

"Well, I imagine there's always a demand for leather in a city like this."

"There is, but right now I need to sell, not buy."

Maggie looked at his stall. There were only a couple of things on his counter aside from the ruined registry: a steel breastplate and a pair of leather gloves.

"But it looks like you'll have to buy pretty soon to replenish your inventory. This way, you can cut out the middle-man on at least this one purchase and save a small amount of money."

"But, the labor costs…"

" It's your labor. I've tanned plenty of skins before. Do you know how much most people will charge you to use their tanning rack?"

"No."

"Nothing."

"Really?"

"Promise."

"I'll pay you 30."

"Done."

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _11_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Loredas_

 _Location: Dragonstar_

 _Weather: Rainy_

 _I feel like an idiot. I finally sold the skin of that deer I shot. Guy said he'd pay me thirty, and I thought he meant septims. Hammerfell's an independent sovereign nation, and apparently, they don't use septims anymore. I now have thirty coins of local currency, which are going to be no good in Skyrim, or anywhere else that isn't Hammerfell for that matter._

 _That storm that's been threatening since yesterday hit early this morning and went all day, almost. Man, do I hate being cooped up inside. Every time I get stuck inside due to rain or what-have-you, I get this longing to be outside again, with the sky above me and the grass—or sand in this case, I suppose—stretching away in front of me._

 _Hopefully, I'll be moving on tomorrow._

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _12_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Sundas_

 _Location: Somewhere in the Alik'r Desert_

 _Weather: Clear and hot_

 _Well, I did get back on the road today. But it took a while. I talked a lot with the locals this morning and determined the things I needed to buy to be as prepared as possible for the desert crossing._

 _The money I got for the deerskin actually came in handy when it came to buying those things, but I actually didn't need as much as I thought I did. I packed for Skyrim weather, and Alik'r Desert nighttime weather isn't that different._

 _I had to buy a waterskin, of course. Going without one would be suicide. I also bought a cloth to cover my head and keep the sun off my face and a sort of eye covering that supposedly cut down on glare. I also ended up buying a second bag, solely for the purpose of holding my fur cloak. I obviously won't need it during the day._

 _I picked up a bit of gossip as well. Apparently, the border guards have been diverted to Skyrim to help put down the uprising there. Maybe this is bigger than I thought._

 _I also got the antlers ground, by which I mean I did it myself. Finding an apothecary shop was surprisingly tricky, but I found one and borrowed the alchemy lab. Actually grinding the damned things involved over an hour of pounding away with a mortar and pestle, and yes, my shoulder hurts like Oblivion now…_

* * *

The sun was going down, its last light staining the desert sands red, when Maggie encountered the bandits. This was far from her first run-in with highwaymen in some form, but these were nothing like the ones in High Rock. The major difference was that these were on horseback.

She'd never seen mounted bandits before, and she'd seen plenty of bandits. She'd fought more than her fair share. The average gang relied far too much on brute force, and that made then fairly easy to deal with for anyone with a bit of fighting ability and half a brain.

These were clearly not _average_ bandits. Everything about them screamed _fast_ , from the build of their horses to the curved swords some of them had already drawn.

They swooped onto the path and surrounded her. Eight of them.

"Hand over your valuables, girl," one said, probably the leader.

"What makes you think I have anything worth taking?" she asked.

She needed to buy time to think up a way out of this. The first thing she noticed was that none of them had a ranged weapon. Interesting. She shifted how she was standing just slightly, to make sure they could see that _she_ did.

"I'm sure I'd find something…on your corpse. Like that bow, for example. Hand it over, and I might let you live."

That did it. Maggie had always hated bullies, and anyone else who lived by leeching off others. She looked around. They were fools. With the way they had positioned themselves, they would have to dismount to fight her. If they stayed on horseback, they would only get in each other's way. That would buy her valuable time to kill as many as she could.

She pulled her bow off her back. "You want this?" she asked, holding it out.

"Give it here."

"And you 'might' let me live?" She pulled her hand back. "I don't particularly like that deal. How about you leave now and I let _you_ live?"

He laughed. "Right. You kill us."

That was a fatal mistake.

"Last chance," he said. "Hand it…"

Maggie notched an arrow and shot him between the eyes. The bandit leader slumped from his horse. The others looked at his body in shock.

That shock proved fatal for the bandit on the leader's right. By the time the others reacted, Maggie had already put an arrow in his chest.

The others moved to attack, and just as Maggie had predicted, their first move was to dismount their horses, and the time that took was all the time Maggie needed to shoot a third one dead.

By that time, three of the remaining bandits seemed to be reconsidering their plan of attack. The other two never wavered and charged forward. Maggie shot one of them in the stomach before he could reach her.

The other slashed at her head with his sword. She barely ducked in time. Backpedaling frantically, she dropped her bow on the sand and drew her hunting knife.

This was not a good situation to be in. Her knife was designed for butchering already dead animals. It definitely wasn't a weapon for fighting with. But it was her best option.

His weapon was for slashing, not stabbing. That much she remembered from sword training with her dad.

How did she get around this? Thanks to her eye protection, he would have a hard time trying to read her intentions in her eyes, but she could see less of his face than he could hers. And his own eye protection would render any attempt to blind him by throwing sand in his face effectively useless.

He lunged forward, slicing his blade in an arc that would have sliced open her stomach had she not jumped back. He swung again, and she had an idea. Instead of jumping back, she dodged right. And kept going. A few steps brought her behind the bandit.

He realized too late what she was doing. He'd figured her for a novice swordfighter, and that was wrong. While she was definitely out of practice, she was not inexperienced by any means, and some things just didn't get forgotten.

He started to turn to face her, but not fast enough to keep her from stabbing him in the side. He dropped to his knees, and she finished him off with a thrust to the heart before she had time to think about it.

She looked around. The three who hadn't wanted to fight her had gotten back on their horses and were currently galloping into the distance. She let them go.

Four other bandits were dead. The one she'd shot in the stomach was lying on the sand, moaning.

She moved towards him. He looked up at her, pleading.

Was she really going to kill a man who couldn't fight back? He would probably die anyway, and in a lot of pain.

This was a mercy. Right? Was he silently asking her to kill him? Or not to kill him? The fact that he wasn't speaking probably meant he was in too much pain.

She closed her eyes and drove her knife into his heart. The look in his eyes would never leave her.

* * *

The bandit leader's horse hadn't bolted during the fight like the others had, so Maggie took it in the hopes of covering the distance to Elinhir more quickly. She searched the bodies of the dead bandits, as well as any packs that the horses hadn't taken with them when they ran off.

These men had surprisingly little in the way of belongings, and Maggie felt a pang of sadness at the pointlessness of their deaths when she realized that they had probably turned to banditry out of desperation.

After that, she hadn't wanted to take anything from them. Even telling herself that they didn't need it anymore wasn't enough to justify it.

So she only took the horse, after making sure to pick up her bow from where she'd dropped it on the sand.

Or at least, she tried to take the horse. She pitched her campsite that night, ate a bit of dried fruit, then bundled up in her cloak and collapsed into her tent. When she woke up, the horse was gone.

She supposed she'd been asking for it. She hadn't tethered it to anything, but only because there hadn't been anything to tether it _to_.

In truth, losing the horse wasn't a big deal. Maggie was not a very good horsewoman. She would take shank's mare over an actual horse any day of the week.

* * *

The next two days were decidedly uneventful. Maggie had never been bored while traveling before, but she had also never traveled through an area that was nothing but sand before either.

The sun beat down the entire time, except at night, of course, and Maggie was supremely grateful that she'd listened to the advice of the people in Dragonstar and bought additional protection against it.

The worst part was the feeling in her feet. If walking for days on the packed earth of High Rock had hurt, walking on the sand hurt more. This time, it wasn't her feet that hurt as much as it was her calves.

Every night when she stopped, the first thing she did was to take off her boots and dump the sand out of them. How she managed to get sand in boots that came up almost to her knees was quite the mystery, but it was one she didn't have time to solve.

The next thing she did every night was massage her feet and calves, desperate to alleviate the perpetual ache.

The last night before arriving in Elinhir, though, something of interest did happen…in Maggie's dreams.

 _She was flying, and it felt so_ right _. Her wings sliced the air as she swooped above a snowy plain._

 _This was Skyrim, she realized. It had to be. High Rock, with its long coastline, never got cold enough for snowfall on this scale. But how was she dreaming about a place she'd never been?_

 _She spotted a village in the distance and banked toward it. A few powerful flaps of her wings, and she covered the distance in what felt like only a few seconds._

 _She felt so_ powerful _up here. She'd always felt like the sky was calling to her. This was where she belonged. With the world laid out below her, it seemed like there was nothing she couldn't do, nowhere she couldn't go._

 _Then she flew over the village and banked into a lazy circle above the central building. And the joy was replaced by horror._

 _Looking down, she realized that the people were staring up at her with looks of terror on their faces. And then she realized that, beneath her horror and confusion at this new discovery, the exultation remained. To part of her, this too felt right._

 _Why should they not cower before her? She was stronger than they were, and if it struck her fancy, she could burn their village to the ground, instead of simply gracing them with her presence._

 _Maggie turned and looked back at herself._

 _She saw a scaly wing, a scaly body, and finally a scaly tail. She was a dragon._

 _And then she looked down again and saw that the village was on fire, the people screaming and running with no purpose other than escaping their burning home. She hadn't done that, had she?_

 _Another dragon flew towards her. It hovered above the village for a moment, and then unleashed its breath of fire on the few buildings that were not currently on fire._

 _"No!" she cried, but it came out only as a garbled roar._

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _15_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Middas_

 _Location: Elinhir, Hammerfell_

 _Weather: Clear_

 _I never thought I would be so happy to be surrounded by people. After almost three days of seeing nothing but sand, I actually jumped for joy when I saw Elinhir on the horizon. Having a nice_ _bed_ _to sleep in tonight is just a bonus._

 _I've never found traveling lonely before, but walking over sand doesn't produce the same feelings in me that walking over the moors and grasslands of High Rock does. I'm starting to think I might risk going through the mountains when I head home, just so I don't have to slog through the desert again._

 _And I have another reason to celebrate my arrival in Elinhir. From here, it's only a couple hours' journey to the border with Skyrim…_

* * *

 **AN: Here's Chapter 2, for those couple of people who have been begging for more. Lots of** **traveling, and lots of practice for me, because I'm not particularly good at writing travel scenes.**

 **Maggie's "eye protection" was inspired by the Inuit (better known as Eskimos) who protect their eyes from the glare of the sun on the snow by wearing whalebone goggles that allow only a small amount of light to enter their eyes. I figured people might wear something similar when traveling through the desert, but I couldn't think of anything else to call them.**

 **I toyed with the idea of the second dragon in Maggie's dream being Alduin, but I threw it out. He'll start haunting her dreams eventually, but not yet.**


	3. Welcome to Skyrim

_"Nords, arise!_

 _Throw off the shackles of Imperial oppression. Do not bow to the yoke of a false emperor._

 _Be true to your blood, to your homeland."_

- _Nords Arise_ , by Anonymous

Not far from Elinhir, the desert gives way to scrubland dotted with trees. Early the next morning, Maggie found herself perched in one of these trees, watching the invisible line that formed the border between Hammerfell and Skyrim. She didn't want to take any chances this time. There was little chance she would find another unguarded border and she wanted to observe for a while before attempting a crossing. Were there patrols in this area? If so, what were their movement patterns?

She watched for hours and saw nothing. Every time she thought she had seen all the nothing she needed to see and made to climb down, she developed a sneaking suspicion that the patrol would come along right then, and so she stayed put. Finally, sheer boredom coaxed her down.

She approached the border tentatively. For some reason, she was dreading this crossing. That didn't make any sense. She should be happy about this. She could very well be in Falkreath by nightfall. And then she could see about maybe taking a faster means of transportation the rest of the way.

Three years ago, Maggie and her family had paid host for a couple of nights to a rather unusual pair of travelers. The unusual thing wasn't the nature of the travelers—Vigilants of Stendarr traveled a fair bit. Rather it was the fact that they'd chosen a farmhouse as their lodgings for the night. One of them, Carcette, had said that she'd felt drawn there.

Maggie had never been particularly fond of the Vigilants. She had always felt that fighting daedra and their worshippers was an odd thing for priests of the god of mercy to do. On the other hand, having two of them staying in the house felt almost like having a piece history under the same roof.

The Vigilants had been founded after the Oblivion Crisis with the stated purpose of ensuring that such a thing could never happen. The Crisis had started when worshippers of Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric Prince of Destruction, had assassinated Emperor Uriel Septim VII. Before long, portals to the plane of Oblivion had been opening all over the world, with daedra and dremora coming through in droves. Dagon could have conquered all of Nirn and would have, were it not for the timely intervention of Akatosh, chief of the Nine.

As excited as Maggie had been, Lini had been more so. Stendarr had always been her preferred Divine, and she had followed Carcette around the house all evening, asking question after question.

While Maggie had initially scoffed at the notion of a fated meeting, the storm that hit the next day had certainly been awfully convenient. Or inconvenient, depending on your perspective. It had given Lini more time to think, to decide that she wanted to go with them when they left. And she had.

Maggie hadn't exactly been supportive at the time. She'd found the notion of her soft-spoken, kind-hearted younger sister fighting daedra and cultists rather absurd. Now she deeply regretted that.

A year later, Maggie and her dad had gotten a letter from Lini, announcing that she'd taken the oath and was now a Vigilant in full. She was living in Skyrim, as part of the order's chapter there, and she seemed happy.

Maggie had written back then, saying that she would visit as soon as she could. It had taken two years to reach the point where taking a trip of this scale was feasible, and it still hadn't been particularly convenient.

Maggie remembered the soon-to-be harvested fields back home. There was a chance that she could get home before the crops absolutely had to be gathered, although knowing her father's stubbornness, he would simply handle the harvest himself.

She looked to the sky, as she tended to do when making a promise, and silently vowed to be home by the end of the next month, Hearthfire.

Then she stepped across the border.

* * *

The next city on Maggie's route was Falkreath. Despite being the largest settlement in the area, it wasn't very big. From reading books written by visitors to Skyrim, Maggie knew that the town's main claim to fame was its graveyard, which was something of a running joke among the people who lived there. That was all Maggie remembered about it. Not much memorable happened in Falkreath.

Although today that didn't seem to be the case. As Maggie got closer, she started hearing shouts and the clang of weapons hitting one another.

And then all of a sudden she found herself looking through a gap between two trees and staring straight at the source of the noise.

In the clearing just beyond, two groups of soldiers clashed. One group wore the familiar uniforms and dragon insignia of Imperial legionaries. The other wore uniforms she'd never seen before: chain mail shirts, accented with blue and bearing an insignia of a bear's head.

It didn't take long for Maggie to realize that the men and women in blue had to be Stormcloaks, soldiers of the rebellion.

The desire to help them was overwhelming. These were, after all, the people who were fighting to bring back Talos. She should be out there fighting too. How many times had she lay awake at night, fantasizing about running off to Skyrim and joining them? _Plenty_ was the answer.

But those weren't Thalmor soldiers. They were Imperial ones, like the troops stationed in various forts around High Rock who'd always made her feel safe. She'd also traded with a few legionaries. They'd always been nice, unlike the rebels, who supposedly had a nasty racist streak.

And as she looked again, she realized that the rebels were losing. Badly. As many as a dozen lay dead already, and those who remained fought with the ferocity of those who knew death was coming and were determined to defy it for as long as possible.

Getting involved would only end badly, she realized. The smartest way to respond to this was to bypass Falkreath entirely and start heading to Whiterun.

 _They're only losing because they don't have an archer,_ nagged a voice in the back of her head.

It was true that the rebel force didn't have any archers. Whether or not the addition of one would make a difference remained to be seen.

But it never would be. This was not something she needed to be part of. At least, not yet.

She heard the sound of a sword coming out of a sheath. And it was coming from right behind her.

"Don't move, rebel," said a voice with a slight Cyrodiilic accent.

Maggie's reaction was not a conscious one. She pulled out her bow and spun around, whacking the unlucky Imperial in the side of the head with it. He fell to the ground.

"Are you blind?" she berated him. "Do I look like…"

She broke off when she realized that the soldier she'd hit was unconscious and that three more were staring at her, weapons drawn.

"Oh, crap," she said. Then she ran.

* * *

Maggie ran for all she was worth, darting between trees, leaping over roots, and trying to ignore how hard it was to breathe. Even in the south of Skyrim, it was noticeably colder than in High Rock, and trying to run in these temperatures made her chest burn. The heavy pack weighing her down didn't help.

She could hear shouting behind her and tried not to focus on it. She caught snippets of the back-and-forth shouting between the pursuing soldiers, enough to figure out that these had the sense to realize that she wasn't a rebel. On the other hand, she had just knocked out one of their comrades-in arms.

A small cliff came into view just to the right. Maggie made for it, hurdling a fallen tree and leaping for the top. She just barely caught the edge and hurriedly pulled herself up.

Once at the top, she rolled onto her back and forced herself to breathe evenly.

"I…hate…Skyrim," she whispered between breaths.

Once she'd more or less caught her breath, she stood up and looked around. She saw a lot of trees, and that was it. No soldiers.

"I lost them?" she asked herself.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she heard a rustling in the bushes. She reacted instantly, spinning around and notching an arrow in her bow.

She waited for a long moment, and when nothing appeared and she heard no further rustling, she started to walk forward.

She pushed between two bushes and stopped. This was where she thought the rustling had been coming from, but nothing was here but a couple of rocks. One of them looked like it had skidded at some point recently, judging from the marks in the dirt near it.

Maggie realized too late that she'd been tricked. That rustling had been someone throwing a rock into those bushes. One of the oldest tricks in the book, and she'd fallen for it.

She turned around, about to run back to the cliff edge, where it was more open. But then something struck her in the head, and she slumped to the ground.

The last thing she heard before darkness claimed her was a voice saying, "Tell the legate we have one more for the carts."

* * *

Maggie swam slowly back to consciousness, as though her body didn't want to wake up. As such, she was aware of the irregular bumping beneath her before she was able to make out her surroundings.

Once her vision cleared, she understood why her body had wanted to stay asleep. She was in the back of a cart driven by an Imperial soldier. All her gear was gone, and her hands were tightly bound with strips of leather.

"You're finally awake," said the man sitting across from her. He looked like a typical Nord, with shoulder-length blond hair, pale skin, and blue eyes.

"Took a sword-hilt to the head. How long was I out?" she asked. It couldn't have been very long, since he was still in his armor.

"About a day." When she didn't say anything, he went on. "You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." He nodded to the man next to him. The thief was also a Nord, but he had dark hair. He was wearing rags and looked like he hadn't eaten a decent meal in days.

"Well," Maggie said. "My luck has never been great."

"Damn you Stormcloaks," interjected the thief. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell."

He turned to her and kept talking. "You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," the blond man said.

"For however long that lasts," Maggie whispered.

"Quiet, back there," yelled the carriage driver.

The thief didn't listen. "What's wrong with him, huh?" he asked, looking at the cart's fourth passenger. Maggie looked too, and she wondered how she hadn't noticed the man while she was watching the battle.

He was clearly a noble of some sort, judging from his clothing. He was also quite a bit older than the other two men, his dirty-blond hair starting to go gray. He was bound the same as they were, but he was also gagged, and Maggie found herself wondering what he might have to say that the Empire would be so afraid of.

She remembered reading about an almost-extinct form of magic native to Skyrim, a power that involved turning words into weapons. If she could just remember the name of it…

"Watch your tongue," snapped the blond man. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King."

"Ulfric," the thief repeated. "The jarl of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion. But if they've captured you…oh, gods, where are they taking us?"

"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits," the blond man said.

"Maybe for you," Maggie said. Sovngarde was the Nordic afterlife. She most definitely was _not_ headed there.

"No. This can't be happening. This can't be happening…" The thief was panicking. Maggie forced down a rising panic of her own.

"What village are you from, horse thief?" asked the blond man.

"Why?"

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

"R-rorikstead. I'm from Rorikstead."

Somewhere up ahead, a soldier called out, "General Tullius, sir. The headsman is waiting." Maggie saw the gate of a town approaching.

"Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me." The thief was praying.

Maggie's amulet was still around her neck. She could feel its weight. If she was going to die here, it was probably a good idea to pray, to set her affairs in order with the Nine—yes, _Nine_ —while she still could. But she'd been praying to the Divines since she was a little girl, and she'd rarely felt that she'd been heard. Maybe they didn't care.

"Look at him," the blond man said bitterly. He was looking forward, at someone up ahead who Maggie couldn't see. "General Tullius, the military governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this."

Maggie gritted her teeth at the mention of the Thalmor, members of the Aldmeri Dominion's ruling faction.

The cart headed through the gate. All along the street, people were coming out of homes and stores to watch. Their faces were grim. They knew what was coming as much as the prisoners did.

"Go inside, Haming," Maggie heard a father say to his son.

"But I want to watch the soldiers."

Maggie didn't hear the father's response.

"This is Helgen," the blond man said, as though thinking back to fond memories. "I used to be sweet on a girl from here. I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with the juniper berries mixed in." He paused. "Funny. When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe."

That was when Maggie realized the true gravity of her situation. Once she had felt the same way, but now she was going to die beneath those walls.

The cart stopped moving. Helgen was laid out in a rough spiral shape, and the carts had now arrived at the very center, passing houses and shops. They were now surrounded by the newly foreboding walls of Helgen keep. Out in front of the keep's main door, glistening in the sunlight stood the block, stained black with the blood of all who had died there. Next to it stood the headsman, ax sharpened and ready. And behind him, a priestess of the Nine. No, Eight.

Maggie sucked in a breath, as she realized she had just seen the place where she would die.

"Why are we stopping?" asked the thief.

"Why do you think?" the blond man replied. "End of the line."

They were ushered out of the carts by several soldiers.

"Let's not keep the gods waiting for us," muttered the blond man.

"I'm not a rebel. You can't do this," the thief cried.

"Face your death with some courage, thief," the blond man admonished at the same time as Maggie said: "Oh, grow a backbone."

"You have to tell them I'm not with you," the thief pleaded. The other man ignored him.

"Step toward the block when we call your name," called a captain.

"Empire loves their damned lists," the blond man muttered.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm," called the captain. Ulfric turned and walked steadily toward the block. Despite staring death in the face, he held his head up. Just seeing that gave Maggie courage.

"Ralof, of Riverwood." The blond man left Maggie's side. As he did, she made a point of committing his name to memory, not that it would matter.

"Lokir, of Rorikstead."

"You won't kill me!" the thief screamed as he took off running toward the gate.

"Archers!" called the captain.

Somewhere on the wall a soldier strung his bow and let an arrow fly. It caught Lokir in the back, and Maggie screamed in spite of herself. Contrary to popular belief, an arrow in the back was not a quick and painless way to die.

Maggie's cry caught the attention of the soldier holding the list.

"You," he called to her. She stepped forward. "What's your name?"

"Magdalyne," she said, biting off the rest of her typical introduction.

"Captain," the soldier asked, "what do we do? She's not on the list."

For just a moment, Maggie's heart leapt in her chest. They were going to let her go, and then everything would be fine. She'd just have to get out of town before the blade started falling, so the sound of it wouldn't haunt her nightmares.

"Forget the list," the captain said. "She goes to the block."

Her stomach clenched anew.

"I'm sorry about this," the other soldier said. "We'll see to it that your remains are returned to High Rock."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" Maggie asked.

A soldier shoved her toward the blocks, and she walked over to stand near Ralof, as the clenching feeling in her stomach got progressively worse.

A man in gilded Imperial armor, who could only be General Tullius, was standing in front of Ulfric.

"Ulfric Stormcloak," the general said. "Some here in Helgen call you a hero, but a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne."

So he did have it. That explained the gag. Maggie felt a little embarrassed that she had forgotten a name as generic as "Voice," but there was another name for the power, one that was in no language she'd ever heard. Unfortunately, that name escaped her too. Her curiosity kicked in, and she wished she could ask the jarl about it. She knew she would never have the chance.

Tullius wasn't done. "You started this war and plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the Empire is going to put you down and restore the peace."

A couple of Stormcloaks near Maggie looked like they had some particularly choice words for the general, but they kept them to themselves.

"Give them their last rites," Tullius ordered the priestess.

She lifted her hands skyward and began to speak. "As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines be upon you…"

"Nine," Maggie muttered. "There's nine Divines."

"Just get on with it," a Stormcloak interrupted as he rushed toward the block.

"My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?" he asked as he laid his head on the bloodstained stone.

The headsman raised his ax. Maggie closed her eyes as the blade descended, but she still heard the horrible, wet _thunk_ as the man's head was severed.

Something roared in the distance as the headsman kicked the body aside. Everyone was looking around, wondering what made a sound like that.

Maggie knew. It was identical to the sound she'd heard the night before crossing into Hammerfell.

"It can't be," she whispered. "Not this far from the mountains."

"Carry on," the general ordered.

"Next, the Breton," called the captain.

Maggie glanced around. "There's another Breton here, right?" she said to herself.

"I said, next prisoner," the captain snapped.

And then Maggie realized that they did, in fact, mean her.

"To the block, prisoner. Nice and easy," said the soldier from before. He _did_ sound sorry.

 _Take the step, Maggie._

She did. Better to go now, before the executioner started getting tired and his blade started getting dull.

 _No. I can't die here._

Step.

 _I have to see Lini._

Step.

 _I have to get home for harvest._

Step.

 _I don't want to die._

Step.

 _I don't want…_

Step.

 _I…_

She was at the block now. Staring at it. Seeing the blood of the last person to die on it, and countless others before him.

Her knees buckled. A booted foot pressed against her back, shoving her forward. A rough hand pushed her hair out of the way, exposing her neck to the ax.

She was face-to-face with the head of the last man to die here, his eyes blank and staring.

A tear came to her eye. Not for herself. Once her body was returned to her father, he would send a letter to Lini, explaining what had happened. Lini would immediately pack up and come home to mourn. Her sister would never stop blaming herself, and for that, Maggie cried.

The roar sounded again. This time, it mingled with screams. Because the source of the sound had just revealed itself, swooping down and landing on the keep.

A huge, black dragon.

* * *

 **AN: No journal entries this chapter, for obvious reasons.**

 **Yes, I did use the dialogue from the game, with Maggie providing a bit of input.**


	4. Black Wings Unfurled

_"And the Scrolls have foretold_

 _Of black wings in the cold_

 _That when brothers wage war come unfurled"_

-"Sons of Skyrim"

The dragon's landing shook the entire keep, as well as the ground around it. Everyone in Maggie's field of vision staggered. Those townspeople still outside all began screaming. Tullius called to his troops.

But the dragon didn't move. Not at first. For a moment that seemed to drag on forever, it simply perched there, surveying the town and the terrified people below it.

Maggie's angle provided her with a perfect view of the creature. Jet-black scales. Wickedly curved talons. Fangs that must have been as long as her arm just poking out of jaws that could swallow a horse and cart whole. Double-curved horns that sat atop its head like a crown. There was little doubt in Maggie's mind at that moment that these creatures had once ruled most of the known world.

But the eyes were the worst part: at least the size of dinner plates and brilliant crimson in color. Those eyes spoke of centuries of tyranny, of towns dyed red with the blood of the slain, of the horrible, fiery retribution that would be visited on those who refused to bow.

And as they fixed themselves on Maggie, she felt a chill run through her body, as though her very soul was being pulled away. Just looking at this dragon made her feel small and helpless. But part of her, the same part that felt right at home in the body of the dragon from her dream-world, couldn't help but admire the power and the majesty of the being before her. And, of course, the wings.

"Come on, kid. The gods won't give us another chance."

Ralof's voice jolted Maggie out of her stupor. She realized that she was lying on the ground. At some point, she'd rolled off the block and hadn't even noticed initially. The dragon was still staring straight at her.

Was she about to become this dragon's lunch?

A firm hand suddenly grabbed her and hauled her to her feet, and in that moment, the atmosphere in the square was completely changed.

As Maggie stood up, an Imperial archer loosed an arrow, which bounced off the scales on the side of the dragon's neck.

It suddenly tipped its head back and roared to the sky. It was not the first time Maggie had heard a dragon's roar, but this one was far louder than the others.

The sky turned orange. Before anyone had a chance to react, a ball of fire streaked overhead and struck a house. The screaming began anew.

"You okay?" Ralof asked Maggie. It was he who'd pulled her to her feet.

"Well, I'm not dead," she said. "At least, not yet."

He started to pull her down the street towards the secondary keep. They hadn't gone five steps when another fireball streaked down and struck the ground right in front of the main keep, in the courtyard they had just left. At least five people were reduced to charred corpses instantly.

The dragon took to the air. Flames rushed from its mouth, incinerating a row of houses, even as a third fireball landed on the other side of town.

Maggie's mind raced as Ralof tugged her down the street. She'd faced some drastic situations in her life. Nothing like this, but she'd learned to keep cool under fire. She could survive this.

Several other Stormcloaks were already in the secondary keep, gathered on the ground floor and in varying states of shock.

One man was sitting against the wall, head in his hands. "This can't be happening, this can't be happening," he whispered over and over.

"But it is," Ralof said.

"I thought they were just legends," added another Stormcloak.

"Legends don't burn down villages." That was Ulfric.

"So what do we do?"

"We can't fight that thing. It's suicide," put in a third soldier.

"The Imperials are trying," countered the second.

"Let them burn."

"We should be concerned with getting ourselves out of here," agreed a fourth.

"Any idea how we do that?" asked the first man, finally standing up.

"The main gate's probably locked in case of escape attempts," said Ralof.

Ulfric listened to the others talk. Maggie was pleasantly surprised to see him listening to his troops to such a degree.

Finally, he turned to her. "Do you have anything to say?" he asked.

Maggie thought for a second. "Well, what are the chances there's an escape tunnel under the main keep?"

"Better than our chances against that dragon," Ralof said.

"So should we start running that way?"

"Everything between here and there is on fire," Ralof said. "We wouldn't make it."

"So, now what?" asked yet another soldier.

Maggie looked toward the spiral staircase that led up to the top of the tower. "If we can't go out, we could try up."

"That's as good as any other idea we've got."

Maggie started up the stairs as several Stormcloaks rushed past her, seemingly desperate for a way out. Maggie walked near the outer wall of the stairwell, listening to the sounds outside. The dragon's roars and the sound of its breath mingled with the screams of Imperial soldiers and the occasional explosion as fireballs continued to fall from the sky.

They were just over halfway up the tower when the outer wall exploded inward, as the dragon stuck its head through the resulting opening, grabbed a screaming Stormcloak in its mouth, and flung the man away. Two others were buried under the rubble.

Maggie flattened herself against the exterior wall of the tower and willed the dragon not to notice her. She was close enough to it to reach out and touch those ebony scales, or, if she'd had her bow, to easily put an arrow in one of those crimson eyes.

Finally, the dragon withdrew its head. Maggie looked out through the hole it had left behind. This was the far side of town from where the dragon had landed initially, but this side looked just as bad. Most of the buildings were burning. None was intact. There were charred bodies in the street.

The house next door had had its roof caved it, but much of it was not yet burning. Jumping to it didn't seem impossible. The Stormcloaks Maggie had thought were right behind her were nowhere in sight. The ones in front of her were dead.

She took a few steps back, then got a short running start and jumped without hesitation.

The single moment she was airborne seemed to last several minutes, long enough for her brain to wonder whether or not she was going to make it at least four times.

And then she hit the wooden floor of the house's second story.

For a moment she was worried she'd gotten herself trapped, but then she saw a gap in the wall that looked big enough to squeeze through.

She did, dropping to the ground outside the house.

Maggie took in the scene before her. The other end of the street, where the main keep was and where the execution was supposed to have taken place, was obscured behind a sheet of flame. The air was filled with the smell of burning wood and flesh.

In the middle of the street, a young boy crouched beside his fallen father, imploring the man to get up. Only a few feet in front of Maggie, two Imperial soldiers behind an overturned cart were trying to coax the boy toward them and to relative safety. One of them held a very familiar bow.

She joined them in their hiding spot. "I think he's in shock," she supplied. "The kid, I mean."

"So we gathered," said one of the Imperials. He looked at her. "Still alive, Breton?"

"For now. Someone's going to have to go out and get him."

"Are you volunteering?" asked the soldier holding the bow. He was the one who'd been reading off names earlier.

"I would be if I had my bow back," she said, reaching for it.

"This is yours?" he asked.

"It's got my initials carved into it," she said, pointing. "MM. Magdalyne Marcheux."

The soldier looked at where she had indicated, where there were indeed two M's carved into the wood.

He was about to hand it to her when a shadow fell across them. The dragon flew overhead and landed on a house at the far end of the street. Its eyes seemed to linger on the boy and his father.

The soldier hurriedly offered Maggie her bow, then pulled the quiver off his back and gave that to her too.

There was only one arrow left. "Sorry," he said.

"I'll only need one," Maggie said as she pulled it out.

Maggie darted out from behind the cart, keeping low to the ground as she zigzagged back and forth across the street.

When she reached the boy, she ducked down beside him.

"Hi," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Papa won't…" the boy started, and then he flung his arms around her neck.

"I'm going to get you out of here, but I need you to trust me. Okay?"

"Okay," he said, wiping tears from his face.

"See that cart back there?"

He looked. "Yes."

"When I say, I need you to run toward it as fast as you can. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay."

Maggie looked up, trying to gauge the dragon's location, just as it glided down from the house and landed in the street. With the flames behind it, it looked like something from the deepest levels of Oblivion.

"Go," she hissed.

The boy took off running.

Maggie stood up and stared at the dragon. She notched her single arrow in the bow and took careful aim at one of those eyes.

"An arrow in the eye will kill anything," she whispered, and then let the arrow fly.

It was a fantastic shot. The arrow flew straight and level. It looked perfect, right up until it bounced off the ridge of scales above the dragon's eye.

"Shit," she whispered.

And then the dragon opened its mouth.

Maggie turned and ran for her life back down the street, certain she was about to feel white-hot flames licking at her heels.

When she finally dove behind the overturned cart and looked back, she saw the father's body was on fire.

"Papa," whispered the boy.

"That was a stupid idea," Maggie muttered.

"That was an amazing shot," said the soldier who'd had her bow.

"I missed," Maggie pointed out.

"I don't know many archers who could have even gotten as close as you did at that distance."

"If fighting dragons is about to become a regular thing, then we could really use someone in the Legion with your skills," added the other soldier.

"Not a chance," Maggie said. "Why would I join the people who just tried to kill me?"

"That was the captain and General Tullius, not us. As far as we're concerned, you've more than earned a pardon."

"And we'll vouch for you if it comes to that."

"I have other things I have to deal with," Maggie said. "Maybe in a couple months."

The dragon suddenly took to the air again, disappearing behind the wall of fire that obscured the main keep from view.

"So, any plans for getting out of here?" Maggie asked.

"A couple."

"Good. I'll stick with you for now, then."

* * *

They were moving toward the far side of town when a familiar man in blue-edged armor went running past them.

"Ralof!" cried the soldier who'd been holding the list, as he drew his sword. "Traitor!"

"The other man slowed down, skidding slightly in the dirt, and turned to face them. "We're escaping, Hadvar," he said. "Don't try to stop us."

Then he noticed Maggie. "Friends of yours?" he asked her.

"I could ask the same of you," she said.

"Whose side are you on?" Hadvar demanded.

"I'm still trying to figure that out myself." She was indeed. Both had been nice to her. Neither seemed like a poor choice of traveling companions. But there would no doubt be some amount of pressure to join whatever side she did end up going with. And if it came to that, if she did end up staying in Skyrim for a while and did get caught up in the civil war, the Stormcloaks were preferable, if only on religious grounds.

She turned and joined Ralof.

"Welcome back, kid," he said to her, and then the two of them turned and kept running.

"You can say goodbye to that pardon," one of the Imperials called after her.

Ralof led her down several side streets before stopping in front of a small stone building. Being stone, it was mostly untouched by the flames that had claimed or were in the process of claiming all the nearby wooden structures.

"I forgot about this at first. It used to be a storehouse, and it's connected to the main keep by a series of underground rooms."

A now all-to-familiar roar sounded from somewhere hidden by the flames and smoke. Ralof hurriedly pushed the door open and pulled Maggie inside.

"Are you from here?" she asked. "You seem to know people in town."

"No," he replied. "I'm from Riverwood, It's relatively nearby."

"Never heard of it."

"You wouldn't have. It's small."

The room on the other side of the door was dimly lit, but Maggie could still make out the dead Stormcloak lying on the floor.

Ralof rushed to the man's side. "Damn Imperials," he said. Then he turned to her. "Take his armor and weapons."

"What?" Maggie asked.

"If we end up having to fight our way out, you'll need better protection," he said. "You can use a sword, right?"

"I mean, I _can_. I'm not very good."

"Good enough."

Maggie went over to the dead soldier. Getting the armor off was challenging, but after a few minutes she was wearing a chainmail shirt and sword belt over her tunic. Of course, her bow and quiver were still on her back.

Maggie and Ralof headed down the stairs on the other side of that room, and then turned the corner into a hallway lit only by the occasional torch.

"Can you give us some light?" Ralof asked. "You're a mage, right?"

"Are you saying that just because I'm a Breton?" Maggie snapped.

"Can you light up this hallway or not?"

"No, actually. I can barely make…" A ball of flame materialized in her right hand. "…fire."

Ralof raised an eyebrow.

"That's how this usually works for me," Maggie explained. "I can only do magic when I'm not actively trying to. And it's going to be hard to fight if I'm holding fire in my hand."

"No, it won't. Sword in one hand, fire in the other."

"But as soon as I can find some arrows, I'm going back to the bow. And then it will be impossible for me to fight and provide light."

"Good point," Ralof said, grabbing a torch from a wall sconce and lighting it from the flames in Maggie's hand.

Putting the flames out proved slightly problematic, as Maggie wasn't completely sure how to cancel a spell without casting it, and throwing fire around in here didn't seem like the best idea. Fortunately, simply closing her hand into a fist and willing the fire to go out did the trick.

They kept moving down the hall. The room at the end had three Imperial soldiers standing guard.

Ralof announced his presence by flinging his torch at one of the guards, and then charging in. Maggie instinctively reached for her bow before remembering that she had no arrows. She grabbed her sword and charged in after him, very much against her better judgment.

One of the three Imperials pulled out a bow of his own and started shooting, although not well. The other two moved to engage the attackers. One went for Ralof. The other came at Maggie.

She had no time to react. The Imperial, a woman, was far more experienced than she, or at least far less rusty. It was all Maggie could do to deflect the blows away from her throat. One nicked her shoulder, leaving a small wound.

She was being pushed back, she realized. Towards the wall, where it would become even harder to keep this woman's sword from striking something vital.

Maggie remembered the trick she had used against the bandit back in Hammerfell and continued circling after dodging the next blow, trying to get behind her opponent. Unfortunately, it didn't work this time. The woman spun, slamming her blade into Maggie's guard.

"Traitor!" she snapped.

"I haven't betrayed anyone," Maggie replied.

"Right," the woman snarled, lunging forward.

The next thing Maggie knew, she was lying on the ground with the point of a sword inches from her nose.

"Any last words, Stormcloak filth?" In her anger, this woman apparently hadn't even noticed that Maggie wasn't a Nord.

"Not again," Maggie muttered.

The woman raised her blade.

Suddenly, the woman staggered, and Maggie saw her chance. Without thinking or wondering what had just happened, she leapt up and rammed her blade up under the woman's breastplate, and then quickly yanked it out and turned away so she wouldn't see the look in the dying soldier's eyes.

Maggie looked around the room and saw that Ralof had dispatched both of the other two soldiers in the time it had taken her to deal with one. He had also retrieved the torch, which was still lit.

Maggie looked at the blood on her blade. Oh, she hated killing.

She looked up just in time to catch the quiver of arrows that Ralof had thrown to her. There were ten arrows in it, and Maggie immediately dumped them all into her quiver. They were metal, not wood with metal heads like the ones she was used to. They would fly differently when shot, but Maggie was more than confident in her ability to adapt. It would be temporary anyway. She could make more once she made it to a town that wasn't this one.

A rumble sounded above their heads.

"We need to keep going," Ralof said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Maggie said.

"You seem uncomfortable."

"I hate being underground."

That was only one of the reasons why she was uncomfortable.

* * *

They headed out a side door and farther down the tunnel. Or maybe they were already in the main keep. Maggie couldn't tell. The cut on her shoulder stung a bit, but she ignored it. It was far from the worst injury she'd ever sustained.

It got hotter as they walked, as though the ground directly above them was on fire, the heat somehow funneling downwards instead of up.

Imperial soldiers attacked them twice, but Maggie easily picked them off with her bow, gritting her teeth the whole time and trying to ignore her own disgust at having to take more lives, which was made harder to do by the fact that she kept having to pull the arrows out of the bodies in order to conserve her limited supply.

Finally they emerged into the basement of the keep proper.

The dungeons.

Maggie reeled back and covered her nose in disgust at the smell. Blood. Death, Excrement.

She could immediately tell that far too many people had died here, and only after enduring things that no one should have to go through.

One wall of this room was lined with cages. All of them had dead bodies inside, most still sporting the now-familiar Stormcloak armor and insignia. But the body on the far end was wearing mage's robes.

She rushed over and found that her sneaking hunch was correct. The man was a Breton. Or had been. He had the light build and dark hair common to her people. The robes were in the familiar style, but not the familiar color. The mages she'd seen in Wayrest had usually worn brighter colors, reds and greens and blues. This man's robes were brown.

If he was a Breton, then that meant that the Thalmor probably weren't responsible for this. They tended to hold Bretons in higher esteem than the other non-Elf races, due to the old stories about Bretons' natural magical capabilities coming from having some measure of Elvish blood. Of course, if the man had been backing the Stormcloaks for whatever reason, then the High Elves would have seen more reason to have him tortured, not less.

There was, oddly enough, a spellbook on the floor of the cell. It was supposedly possible to learn a spell simply by reading such a book, and the chance to learn a new spell quickly and easily and thereby add to her dismal magical repertoire initially piqued her interest before she remembered that Nords weren't particularly fond of mages.

Lini's magic teacher had despised spellbooks, regarding them as "the easy way out," allowing the learning of a spell with almost no effort, provided the person had the aptitude.

Maggie again contemplated taking the book, just because such tomes tended to fetch quite a bit of money from the right buyer, but that plan too was stymied, this time by the still-locked cell door. Opening locked things without the key was not Maggie's forte, and after scanning the room and finding no implements suitable for the task, she decided it wasn't worth it.

Ralof's sudden cry reminded her where she was. She spun around just in time to see two Imperial soldiers come through the door behind her and attack him.

At the same moment, a third soldier came through the other door, only a few feet from Maggie, and swung an ax at her.

She barely dodged, pulling out her sword as she did. She didn't like her chances, even less so than in the earlier fight. Her father's lessons about fighting against someone using a heavier weapon like an ax had amounted to a single bit of advice: blows from such a weapon were meant to be dodged, not parried.

Maggie dodged another blow, then a third. Fortunately for her, ax swings were slower than sword swings, due to the greater weight of the weapon.

But then she slipped, in a puddle of blood that could well be the only one in the room that hadn't yet dried.

The man loomed over her, ax at the ready, and Maggie couldn't help but think that the gods particularly disliked her today, when a sword erupted out of the man's chest, and he slumped to the floor, revealing Ralof.

He extended his hand and helped Maggie up.

"Thanks. How did you deal with two soldiers that fast?"

"You mean the two Imperial rich kids who fought like they'd never swung a sword before in their lives?"

"Oh."

* * *

The rest of the basement was empty. It seemed as though all the other Imperials had already made themselves scarce. Or died.

Whatever the reason, Maggie and Ralof encountered nothing more dangerous than a few unnaturally large rats, which the locals apparently called "skeevers."

It was Ralof who found the trap door.

Both of them descended down the ladder into the cool, damp underground caves. Ordinarily Maggie would have described the area as awful, but the cool air was welcome after the burning town.

It was also pitch-dark in the caves, aside from the small amount of light provided by the torch.

"You're really not very good with a sword, are you?" Ralof asked as they walked.

"Give me a break," Maggie retorted. "I haven't trained with anything but a bow in six years."

Ralof raised an eyebrow, barely visible in the torchlight.

"Before today, I didn't even carry a sword."

"And you hadn't ever killed people either, right?"

"No. That I've done before."

"Really? I wouldn't have figured."

"Well, watching someone die because of you is not something you ever get used to."

"I disagree. You hesitate for a moment after each kill, while what you've done sinks in. On the battlefield, that'll get you killed."

"Well, then, may the gods grant that I never find myself on a battlefield."

Ralof seemingly had no response to that, and so the two continued on in silence.

Silence that was quickly broken by a roar.

Maggie couldn't see the source of the sound, but her first thought was that it was the dragon. She quickly forced herself to calm down, and when the sound came again, she realized that it was a bear's roar.

"Can you see anything?" Ralof hissed.

Maggie's supposedly preternatural eyesight didn't make any difference in this case. In the dark, her eyes were no better than anyone else's.

"I can't, but I know what sounds animals make. That's a bear."

"Let's see if we can sneak past."

"It's already smelled us. That's why it's roaring."

"What do you recommend?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to tell with all the echoing, but it sounds like it's off to that side of the room." She pointed to the right. "There's a small chance we'll be fine if we go around the other side."

They slipped into the room, moving as quickly and quietly as they could along the wall on the left side.

They were halfway across, when Maggie heard the sound of heavy footfalls that were not hers or Ralof's and were moving quickly toward them.

"Shit!" she cried. She grabbed Ralof's arm and pointed at where she hoped the bear was. Ralof flung his torch at where she pointed. It landed about fifteen feet away, illuminating a large and very angry brown bear, which quickly skidded to a halt when it realized fire was being thrown at it.

Ralof started to run, but Maggie grabbed him by the arm again.

"Don't act like prey," she hissed. "Don't run. Back away slowly."

They did, backing away from the bear, which was left standing in the cave giving the thrown torch a rather quizzical look.

They were now without a light source, with no way whatsoever of obtaining a new one. Fortunately, the path from here on was relatively straight, and, more importantly, quite short. They saw daylight after one more turn.

The first thing Maggie did after emerging into the light of day once again to take a moment to enjoy the warmth of the sun on her face. Even though, the trip through the tunnels hadn't lasted that long, she was in no hurry to repeat it.

It seemed to be roughly midday, but she didn't have time to confirm that before Ralof grabbed her and pulled her behind a rock.

Just as the dragon flew overhead.

Maggie once again couldn't help but take a moment to admire it, before her common sense caught up and she was reminded of what this creature had just done.

"It's heading west," Ralof observed. "Toward Whiterun. And Riverwood."

"Isn't that…" Maggie started.

"My home."

* * *

 **AN: When a dragon attacks Helgen, Maggie finds unexpected allies in both sides of the civil war...**

 **No journal entries in this chapter for obvious reasons. They'll be back in chapter 5.**

 **If anyone's curious about why I bothered to include that bear, I used it as a way to show Maggie's knowledge of wildlife.**


	5. Nature of the Beast

_"…it was this lack of understanding that formed the basis of what became, ironically, their most impressive creative achievement—"Alduin," the World Eater, phantom of bedtime stories and justification for ancient (if imagined) deeds."_

- _The Alduin/Akatosh Dichotomy_ , Alexandre Simon

 _4E 201_

 _17_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Fredas_

 _Location: Skyrim, near Helgen_

 _Weather: Clear_

 _I said I wanted to keep a record of this trip in case something amazing happened. Well, something did, but this particular something is so ridiculous that I'm not sure it's even worth documenting._

 _Centuries from now, would people even believe me?_

 _All right. Here goes._

 _I thought I saw a dragon on the way to Skyrim. Now I know I did. How?_

 _Because that dragon—at least, I'm praying it was the same one—just attacked and destroyed the town of Helgen._

 _I suppose I should explain in more detail. After I crossed the border, I walked into a skirmish between Imperial troops and Stormcloak rebels and got myself arrested._

 _For whatever reason—I imagine the amulet in the bottom of my bag had something to do with this—they put me in a cart with the rebels they captured and sent me to be executed in Helgen._

 _I was about two seconds from being short a head when the dragon landed on the roof of the keep and started systematically tearing the town apart._

 _I don't know how many people survived. I made it out with only minimal injuries, and in the process, I acquired a traveling companion, at least in the short term: Ralof, a Stormcloak soldier who has family nearby._

 _A place to hide out for a while could be extremely useful. I'm probably a wanted fugitive in Skyrim right now._

 _To top it off, I have no supplies, aside from a bow and a handful of arrows, and I'm wearing Stormcloak armor I stole off a dead body._

 _The rest of my trip could be very difficult._

* * *

 _The dragon had black scales, and I mean_ _solid_ _black. No markings, no variations. Its eyes were red. I know because it spent a disturbingly long moment looking straight at me. There were dozens of people below the keep when it landed, and it gave each of them only a brief look. Except me. When it looked at me, its eyes lingered._

 _What could it have found so interesting about me?_

 _I did notice one other thing about it. It had no front legs, only rear ones. It had to use its wings as front legs, like a bat, when on the ground. The books I've read about dragons never bothered discussing their anatomy, so this was an interesting detail. Dragons. Majestic and powerful in the air. Slow and unwieldy on the ground. Obviously, then, the dragonslayer's first task would be getting one on the ground…_

* * *

 _I was also wrong about the political situation in Skyrim. There's this ancient form of magic called the Voice, which the heroes who defeated the dragons all those years ago could apparently use. The books made it sound like the power was extinct, but Ulfric Stormcloak, the rebel leader, can apparently use it. He allegedly murdered Skyrim's king with it._

 _I also heard no mention of Talos whatsoever…_

* * *

Maggie was grateful to finally be walking on a firm surface. The ground beneath her feet was firm dirt, not sand, so she finally got to enjoy walking without sinking an inch into the ground with every step.

Skyrim was beautiful. The sky was clear and blue. Pine trees lined the road on both sides, filling the air with the smell of evergreen. Small plants with flowers of red and purple were scattered anywhere sunlight could reach the ground through the trees.

"Enjoying the scenery?" Ralof asked.

"It's beautiful. I almost wish I was staying."

Ralof stopped walking and turned to face her. "You're not?"

"I mean, I feel like I have a responsibility to help deal with that dragon, but once that's done and I've done what I originally came to do, I'm going home. I've got family in High Rock waiting for me."

"I saw how close you came to putting an arrow in that monster's eye. We could really use you in Windhelm."

"The Imperials said the same thing," she said.

"You're not…"

"Why would I side with the people who tried to kill me?"

"Just so long as you know what side you're on."

That was the question, though. Did Maggie even want to be on a side?

* * *

Maggie had ignored the cut on her arm. It was only when they stopped for the night that she realized that dry blood covered the outside of her upper arm. The small cut had continued to bleed as they walked.

"Hmm," Maggie muttered. "Deeper than I thought."

"Are you all right?" Ralof asked.

"I'm fine."

Maggie grabbed her stolen quiver and started looking around the outside of it. Finding nothing, she turned it upside-down and dumped out all the arrows, along with what she'd been looking for.

A white rag and a small vial of oil.

"How did you know?" Ralof asked.

"There's a fort not too far from where I grew up. I got a few pointers from the soldiers stationed there, but the biggest thing I learned was that a military archer always carries the equipment for making fire arrows."

Maggie took the cap off the oil and sniffed it. It didn't smell like alcohol. That was a problem. She'd hoped to find alcohol that could be used to sterilize the cut, but she probably shouldn't have expected there to be any in the quiver. If you give soldiers alcohol, they're probably going to drink it, after all.

"Do you have any water?" she asked.

"It won't be..."

"Sterile, I know. But we can…No, we can't. Because we're screwed on supplies."

"We are," Ralof agreed.

"How far is Riverwood?"

"Another day, maybe."

"Then I guess all we can do is keep going and hope it doesn't get infected."

* * *

Maggie decided to go hunting. She was frustrated. She had no food, water, or supplies. Her amulet was missing. She was probably wanted by Skyrim's Imperial forces, assuming any had survived Helgen. There was a dragon flying around wreaking havoc. And at the rate things were going, she was never going to get to the Hall to see Lini.

She was walking so loudly she was probably scaring away all the game animals, but she didn't care.

As she walked, she realized she wasn't the only one out here. She could hear heavy breathing close by. Heavy canine breathing.

Another hunter's dogs? Probably not. She had yet to see anyone in Skyrim who looked to have both the means to maintain a pack of hunting dogs and a reason to do so.

Three wolves appeared out of the trees and charged her.

Maggie shot the first one between the eyes.

In High Rock, that would have been enough. High Rock wolves didn't go after prey that could fight back.

But this was Skyrim.

The other two wolves split off and started circling behind her. Maggie spun around and fired another arrow. This one struck its target in the side, but the wolf stayed on its feet.

Maggie pulled out another arrow and fired again. This time, her aim was better, and the arrow found the wolf's heart.

There was one left.

Maggie put away her bow and drew her sword. She turned slowly to face her last attacker.

She was met by a snarling mass of fur and claws as the last wolf jumped on top of her. She fell as the wolf lunged toward her face.

"Do I look like prey to you?" she screamed as she plunged her blade into the wolf's stomach.

Maggie pushed the corpse off of herself and rolled over.

"Welcome to Skyrim," she said as she brought her blade down onto the wolf's neck. "Where humans are not the top of the food chain."

* * *

Maggie walked back to camp, dragging a wolf carcass behind her the way she would usually be dragging a deer. The way she would be dragging a deer if she was still in High Rock.

Ralof was sitting outside of his tent, trying to start a fire.

"I was expecting venison," he said when he saw what Maggie was hauling.

"Why didn't you warn me that the animals here attack people?" Maggie yelled, dropping her cargo.

"I thought you knew, at least after those skeevers."

"I've never seen wolves as persistent as these. They don't do that in High Rock."

"They don't?"

"Well, they do when food is scarce."

"Food is always scarce here. Welcome to Skyrim," Ralof said, with a distinct sarcastic overtone.

"Welcome to Skyrim," Maggie agreed, echoing his tone. "I'm beginning to wish I never came."

"Why did you come?"

"To visit my sister."

"Does she have ridiculously good aim too?"

"Maybe with spells. She's a mage."

"Doesn't run in the family, huh?"

"Nope. Dad doesn't have it either. I don't know about Mom."

"Oh?"

"She died when I was two."

"I'm…"

"Don't say you're sorry."

* * *

Maggie didn't sleep well that night. Her dreams were filled with fire, ominous dragon roars, and crimson eyes staring into her soul. And then there was the flying dream, which once again ended with her watching another dragon lay waist to a town, a town that now looked an awful lot like Helgen.

After that, she couldn't sleep at all.

Maggie found herself sitting awake and thinking about everything she knew about dragons. Which wasn't very much.

They came to Tamriel from another continent well before the beginning of recorded history, took control of the entire continent, ruled for thousands of years, killed thousands of people to safeguard their rule, and were finally overthrown at the end of a lengthy civil war. The means of that overthrow was almost entirely lacking in detail in the single account Maggie had read. Once the war was won, the rebels hunted down and killed every dragon left.

"And then there was that weird detail where they're immortal but can die but can also come back to life. And if they can resurrect whenever, how did the rebels manage to wipe them out?"

"Go to sleep," Ralof muttered.

"Sorry. Thinking out loud," Maggie said.

"About dragons?"

"It's kind of relevant right now, don't you think?"

"Of course, but how do you not know that part?"

"What? About them coming back from the dead. Well, they aren't exactly an integral part of High Rock's history like they are here."

"They're not?" Ralof asked.

"Well, the ruins of those temples are everywhere, but it wasn't Bretons who finally overthrew them. It was Nords."

"We struck the final blow, but the war covered the whole continent."

"Didn't you also start it?"

"True. It started in the mountains near Markarth."

"So how did they come back from the dead?" Maggie asked.

"Well, he did it."

"He who?"

"The World Eater."

"What?"

"Alduin. First and most powerful of the dragons, Akatosh's children."

"No. That can't be right."

"Why not?"

"Isn't Alduin just another name for Akatosh?"

"Who told you that?"

"There's a book called _The Alduin/Akatosh Dichotomy_. It's pretty popular."

"And it says…" Ralof started.

"Yep. And the author goes on and on about how Nords are stupid, backward barbarians for insisting that they're two different gods."

"What?"

"And it was written by a Breton, meaning that it's pretty popular where I'm from. I read the whole thing."

"How much of our mythology did that book discuss?"

"Some, but I don't want to take any of it at face value. Bretons are supposed to be half-Elf. Sometimes we have the same faults."

"That was smart."

"What are you getting at?" Maggie asked.

"If the dragons are returning, it can only be because Alduin is bringing them back. And if he has returned, then this is the end of the world."

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _18_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Loredas_

 _Location: En route to Riverwood_

 _Weather: Partly cloudy_

 _So far the trip from Helgen has been uneventful. Well, maybe that's not accurate, but at least we haven't run into any Imperial patrols._

 _I keep having dragon dreams. They started while I was still in Hammerfell, and they've only gotten more intense. I've dreamed of flying since I was a little girl, but recently it wasn't simply flying. It was dreaming of myself in the body of a dragon. Seeing another dragon destroy a town and feeling both horrified and exultant at the same time._

 _And last night, the town looked like Helgen._

* * *

 _Ralof keeps talking about Nordic mythology. Here's the basics. In almost every mythology that includes Akatosh, he has a second aspect: Alduin, dragon god of destruction. Akatosh makes worlds, and when the time comes, Alduin destroys them._

 _Nords teach it differently, apparently. For them, Alduin is a separate entity, the firstborn and strongest of Akatosh's children, the dragons, with the power to resurrect his brethren if they ever died._

 _According to Ralof, if the dragons have returned to the world, then so has Alduin, and that means the world is going to end._

 _I don't know what I think about that. I'm sure I should be scared. But even in High Rock's version of the myth, the existence of the Destroyer never made sense to me. Why make a world only to turn around and destroy it?_

 _We've only seen one dragon. Maybe they just missed one when they were hunting them all down after the war._

 _I'll certainly sleep much better if that's true._

* * *

They walked in silence, both lost in thought. Ralof's words about the end of the world kept spinning around in Maggie's head.

It was another beautiful day. The sky was mostly clear, and was that same brilliant blue. But Maggie wasn't able to enjoy it. Images of dragons, burning towns, dead bodies, and, of course, red eyes kept flickering through her mind, punctuated by Ralof's words: "This is the end of the world."

Ralof suddenly grabbed her and pulled her off the road.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Look," Ralof whispered.

He pointed down the road.

Three figures walked toward them, two in gold-colored armor and one in a blue robe. All of them had pointed ears.

"Thalmor," Maggie whispered.

"How about we knock some heads?" Ralof suggested.

He drew his sword. Maggie grabbed his arm.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Did you notice the guy in blue? That's a mage. You run out there without a plan, and he'll roast you. Let me handle him."

Maggie notched an arrow in her bow. This was a long shot, not as long as some of the shots she'd made while hunting, but the last shot she'd made at this range had missed.

She let the arrow fly. It was another fantastic shot. Straight, level, and, this time, dead on target. The mage crumpled to the ground, arrow in his forehead.

The two elves in armor drew their weapons. They started to walk forward.

Ralof started to step from the trees. Maggie grabbed his arm.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Just because those two have swords doesn't mean they can't use magic. Wait for them to get closer."

The two elves walked slowly down the path, swords out, scanning the trees as well as the road ahead of them.

But they were getting inevitably closer to where Maggie and Ralof—and their deaths—waited.

They were two feet away when Maggie shouted, "Now!"

Ralof charged, ramming his sword into one soldier's gut before the elf had time to react.

As one soldier fell to the ground, the other slashed his sword at Ralof's chest. Ralof caught the blow on his own weapon and shoved the elf backwards.

Maggie watched them fight, and as she did, she found herself reminded of why she hated the Thalmor. She could see it in the way this elf fought. He never made eye contact with his opponent and seemed to be looking over Ralof's head. His left hand, his free hand, was on his hip, giving himself the air of a man faced with a disobedient child rather than an armed fellow soldier. Maggie had watched more than one execution of a so-called heretic in Wayrest. There were always Thalmor there, and they always made a speech. They didn't talk about the worship of Talos as heresy or treason but rather as ignorance.

Maggie stepped out of the trees.

"Hey, Pointy," she called.

The elf turned to look at her.

And Maggie shot him between the eyes.

"Pointy?" Ralof asked.

"I could have come up with something better," Maggie said.

"You really hate them, don't you?"

"I've heard them go on and on about how they're freeing us from ignorance by banning Talos."

"You…"

"I do. I had the amulet in my backpack when I was captured."

"So that's…"

"I think so. That's why I ended up in Helgen."

* * *

 **AN: Ralof tells Maggie the Nordic legends about dragons, and what their return may mean for the world.**

 **I'm not particularly happy with the choice of quote for this chapter. I wish I could have made it shorter, but I couldn't find any way to do that and still get the point across. And considering that _The Alduin/Akatosh Dichotomy_ was explicitly mentioned in this chapter, that was the most logical choice for where to look for a quote.**


	6. State of Things

_"Book passage on carriage or vessel, and make the journey north._

 _See Skyrim with thine own own eyes."_

 _-Nords of Skyrim_ , by Hrothmund Wolf-heart

They arrived in Riverwood just after dark, which was fortunate, as it turned out.

"I can't believe you're sneaking into your own hometown," Maggie whispered.

"Welcome to Skyrim," Ralof said.

"Really?" Maggie rolled her eyes.

"Seriously," Ralof said. "Whiterun Hold is neutral in the civil war, but instead of both sides being welcome here, neither is. Jarl Balgruuf is doesn't want to look like he's supporting either side more than the other."

So they slipped into town under the cover of darkness, without using the path or the main gate. Ralof led Maggie up to a house set apart from the rest of town. The house's features were difficult to make out in the dark, but the mill in the backyard was obvious.

Ralof knocked on the door.

"Hod, it's me," he whispered.

The door opened. A sword emerged from the darkness, pointing at Ralof's throat.

"Whoa. Wait. It's me. It's Ralof."

A candle flame flared to life. In its light, Maggie could see the face of a man with the same bearing as everyone she'd met since coming to Skyrim: that of someone accustomed to hardship.

"Ralof?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'll explain. But not here. Can we come inside?"

"We?"

The man saw Maggie.

"Is Ulfric recruiting Bretons now?"

"I'm not a rebel. I needed armor, and this is what was available," Maggie explained.

"Damn half-Elves," the man muttered.

"Really?" Maggie muttered.

"Can we come in or not?" Ralof asked.

"You can. Not her."

"She's with me. She saved my life, and I've never met a better archer."

The other man scowled.

"I'm not coming in without her," Ralof said, "so either you let us in, or we go get rooms in the Sleeping Giant."

"Alright. Come in."

* * *

 _4E 201_

 _19_ _th_ _of Last Seed_

 _Sundas_

 _Location: Riverwood_

 _Weather: Partly cloudy_

 _We made it to Riverwood late last night. I immediately wanted to fall into a nice soft bed. I haven't shown it, but I'm exhausted. Helgen was a huge strain on my body, and sleeping on the ground for the last couple days hasn't helped._

 _But before I could, Ralof had to vouch for me to his family. I might be wearing Stormcloak armor, but, unlike some of the Imperials,_ _they_ _noticed that I'm a Breton and were immediately suspicious. Old stories about us being half Elf, and all._

 _And once that was done, Ralof's sister, Gerdur, noticed the cut on my arm, which I had completely forgotten in my rush to get to a decent bed. So I had to wait a little longer while she cleaned and bandaged it. But I'm not complaining about that, at least. I'm just glad it wasn't infected._

 _There's a blacksmith in town, so I'm hoping I can get some less conspicuous armor. I'm leaving as soon as possible for the Hall. If I can get out of here tomorrow, I might still make it on schedule…_

* * *

Maggie woke up early the next morning, but not early enough. She had slept on a pallet in Hod and Gerdur's spare room, surrounded by stored food. When she walked out into the main room, she found that, despite the early hour, she was the last one up.

"How'd you sleep?" Ralof asked her.

"Beats sleeping on the ground without a sleeping bag," Maggie said.

"Plans for today?"

"Get some armor that's less…political. There's a blacksmith in town, right?"

"Of course there is," said Hod.

"But I wouldn't recommend going there," Ralof added.

"Why not?" Maggie asked.

"His nephew's an Imperial soldier," Ralof explained.

"Oh?"

"You've met him."

"I have?"

"Hadvar."

"So that's how you know each other," Maggie said.

"We grew up together."

"I'm sorry."

"There's a thousand people in Skyrim with the same story."

Maggie thought for a second.

"Well, I'll take the armor off," she said.

"If Hadvar's in town it won't make a difference. He'll recognize you, and then we'll both get arrested and probably go right back to the chopping block."

"Back to the chopping block?" Gerdur asked. "What happened?"

"That's a long story," Ralof said.

"No one's going anywhere," said Hod.

"Well, it starts with a trip to Falkreath. Taking control of Falkreath Hold would be strategically advantageous and would also put pressure on Balgruuf to hurry up and choose a side already. I don't know why Jarl Ulfric decided he needed to lead the mission personally, but he did.

"Either Tullius predicted what we were planning or someone sold us out. Because he walked straight into an ambush. As did she, while trying to cross the border from Hammerfell."

"What was a Breton doing in Hammerfell?" Hod asked.

"Avoiding the mountains," Maggie said.

"Anyway, there was a fight. Anyone who wasn't killed was sent to Helgen to be executed."

Gerdur looked at Maggie. "For nothing?" she asked.

"For heresy, actually," Maggie said.

"Oh. Well, then."

"So why are you both not short a few inches?" Hod asked.

"That's the real story," Maggie said. "Do you want to tell it, or should I?"

"You can, if you want," Ralof said.

"Helgen is gone," Maggie said. "Destroyed."

"How?"

Maggie took a deep breath.

"A dragon."

"That's impossible," Gerdur said.

"Seems like it, but it happened," Ralof said.

"How? They were wiped out," Hod added.

"You missed one," Maggie said.

"It's just…" Gerdur looked at Ralof. "You know the story."

"Their return is supposed to be the end of the world. So I've been told," Maggie said. "But here's the thing. It's not like they're coming back from the dead."

"How do you know?" Gerdur asked.

"I saw one once before, a few days before I got to Skyrim. It was just a roar and the shadow of a wing against a cliff face, but it's clearly been up there in the mountains a long time."

"What are you saying?" Hod asked.

"That I don't think this is some apocalyptic event. It's just one dragon. We track it down, kill it, and then everything goes back to normal."

* * *

 _19_ _th_ _of Last Seed (cont.)_

 _Weather: Still partly cloudy_

 _Hod and Gerdur are as convinced as Ralof is that the return of the dragons heralds the end of the world. I tried to convince them that it was just one dragon and that all we had to do was find it and kill it and the problem would be dealt with._

 _I think I lied. First, part of me, that part that looks at dragons in awe and dreams about being one, doesn't want to see them die. And second, even as I said it, I realized that I wasn't sure I believed it._

 _I keep telling myself that they're wrong. That the Nordic apocalypse story is wrong. But even if it is, there could be more dragons. If the rebels missed one, how many more could they have missed? Hiding out in any remote, inhospitable area, a dragon could go unnoticed indefinitely, and Skyrim has plenty of those._

 _And even a few dragons could cause the end of the world, in a manner of speaking, by taking over Tamriel and reducing the rest of us to little more than slaves._

 _I'm scaring myself._

 _Anyway, after that talk, I needed some air, so I went out behind the house. There's a workbench out there, with materials, so I sat down and crafted 20 arrows of the kind I'm most familiar with: wooden shafts with stone or metal heads and feathers for fletching. I ended up having to use stone heads, which are primitive but no less effective if properly carved. Finding enough feathers to fletch them all proved difficult, so I hung on to the metal ones. I'll have to shoot a bird on the way to Whiterun._

* * *

Maggie looked up as Ralof stepped outside, letting the door fall shut behind him.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"I have a lot to think about," she said.

"Everyone does."

"What?"

"Life is hard."

"Well, of course it is. I'm not saying there wasn't a lot on my plate before Helgen, but it was a different kind of stuff."

Maggie stood up.

"You know, go hunting, Wayrest on Sundas, tend the herb garden, practice my aim, study…

"Study?" Ralof asked.

"I was planning on going to college."

"College? Like the College of Winterhold?"

"That's a mages' college. I'm talking about studying history. Or archeology."

"Starting when?"

"I planned to apply after I got home from this trip. But now I honestly don't know if I'll ever get home, considering I almost died five times just in Helgen."

"Five times?"

It was Gerdur, standing in the doorway.

"Well…you know…dragons…" Maggie said. "Also, Imperials. Guy with an ax…"

"You can tell me the whole story over lunch," Gerdur said.

"There's not much to tell," Maggie said as she followed Gerdur inside. "Two fights with Imperial soldiers, two times I was almost dragon food, and my almost-execution."

Lunch was a simple, but delicious, bowl of potato soup. It was the first decent food Maggie had eaten since her stop in Elinhir.

"So was all that stuff Tullius said about Ulfric true?" Maggie asked.

"The Empire always exaggerates," Ralof said. "Ulfric challenged High King Torygg for the kingship. Single combat has always been the traditional way that power changes hands in Skyrim "

"But Ulfric used the Voice to gain an unfair advantage," Maggie guessed.

"It was Torygg who didn't fight fairly. Ulfric used the Voice in self-defense."

"I'm going to stop this argument right there," Gerdur said. She turned to Maggie. "What you have to understand while you're in Skyrim is that neither side in this war is fully right and neither side is fully wrong. They both have their propaganda and their biases. If you don't want to get involved, then don't let us pressure you into choosing a side."

"I'm already leaning Stormcloak," Maggie said.

"Oh," Gerdur said. "Ok."

"The Imperials tried to execute me. They're probably looking for me right now. I'd probably be arrested if I tried to join them. Not to mention, I was on that cart for heresy. A Stormcloak victory means no more executing people for their choice of Divine, right?"

"Most likely," Ralof said.

"Only most likely?" Maggie asked.

"Well, we're not fighting for that specifically. Ulfric fought in the Great War, and he thought the Empire was horribly weak for signing that treaty."

"Which they were," Hod put in.

"He figured that, if the Redguards were seceding, then we Nords could too."

"Seems fair," Maggie said.

"The problem is that this time the Empire has the resources to dedicate to putting down a rebellion."

"So you're not fighting to bring back Talos?"

"We're fighting because we're mad about the White-Gold Concordat, and since the Talos ban was part of the treaty, I guess you could say that we are."

"So what's the political situation right now?" Maggie asked.

"Dawnstar, Winterhold, and Riften have sided with Ulfric and Windhelm. Falkreath, Markarth, Morthal, and Solitude are loyal to the Empire. Whiterun, as I've already said, is still neutral."

There was a knock on the door.

Hod and Gerdur jumped up.

"Both of you, hide in the storeroom," Gerdur said, as she hurriedly stashed Maggie's and Ralof's soup bowls under the table.

They did.

Hod opened the door.

"Hod, have you heard?" asked a man's voice.

"Heard what?"

"I just heard from my nephew that Helgen's been destroyed. By a dragon."

"That's impossible," Gerdur said.

"Hadvar saw it with his own two eyes, and, as crazy as it sounds, I believe him."

"Then we should send word to the jarl," Hod said.

"Exactly what I was thinking," the man said. "Will you go?"

"Yes. Of course I will, but I have an order of wood bound for Rorikstead that I'll have to finish chopping first."

"That's fine, I suppose. If it can't be helped."

The door closed.

"That was Alvor, the blacksmith," Gerdur said. "His nephew—"

"We heard every word," Maggie interrupted, coming out of the storeroom.

"Hadvar's in town," Ralof said.

"Yes, but he gave us a way to get you out of town," Gerdur said. "Will you two go to Whiterun and warn the jarl?"

"I am known to the jarl and to the hold guards," Ralof said. "I'll be arrested the second I show my face."

"I guess it's up to me," Maggie said.

Ralof handed her the borrowed armor, which she'd taken off to sleep.

"You'll need the extra protection on the road," he said. "Trust me."

"Welcome to Skyrim," Maggie joked.

Hod and Gerdur handed her a pack and a cloak.

"You'll need these," Gerdur said.

"Don't leave until it starts to get dark, and take anything you need from the storeroom," said Hod.

"Thanks," Maggie said.

* * *

Her new pack full of supplies, including the armor, Maggie snuck out the front door of the house at dusk. There was no one in site except for a pair of guards walking in the other direction and two people having a loud argument in the doorway of a shop.

"No, Camilla," said the man. "I'm not letting you go running off."

"You said it yourself," the woman said. "The Golden Claw is a family heirloom. We have to go get it back."

" _We_ will not be doing anything. What would you do if you did find the thieves who took it? I'll hire someone to go get it."

That would be a good way to make some money. Maggie made a note of the name on the store's sign. Valerius, it said.

She was headed in the other direction, so she turned away from the shop and the arguing couple.

She was almost at the gate when she felt the tip of a sword pressed to the back of her neck.

"Hands up. Turn around slowly," commanded a familiar voice.

Maggie complied.

"Hadvar," she said. "How in Oblivion did you sneak up on me?"

The Imperial held a torch in one hand and his sword in the other. The soldier who'd been with him in Helgen stood behind him, a length of rope in his hands.

"Where's Ralof?" Hadvar demanded.

"We split up," Maggie said. "Right after escaping Helgen. I don't know where he is."

"You came out of his sister's house," Hadvar snapped. "Don't lie to me, traitor."

"I…no, I won't tell you."

"Fine." He turned to his comrade. "Tie her hands."

"Wait," said the other soldier. "This is what I've been trying to tell you."

"What?" Hadvar asked.

"She did better against that dragon than did an entire squadron of legionaries working together. If we're going to find it and kill it, then the best place for her is out there looking for it, not in jail. And definitely not on a chopping block."

"Fine," Hadvar said. "Go kill that dragon."

* * *

 **AN: Maggie meets Ralof's family, who send her to Whiterun to speak to the jarl about Helgen and the dragon.**

 **This chapter took forever. It's the main reason why it's taken me so long to update.**


End file.
